Interim coach Mickey Joseph calls first Nebraska win 'a great accomplishment'
The debut for Nebraska interim coach Mickey Joseph was anything but a Hollywood story, with the Cornhuskers getting demolished by Oklahoma 46-14 in Lincoln, Neb. Needless to say after a bye week and a win over Indiana on Saturday, the Cornhuskers had a lot to be thankful for.
It was the first sign of light at the end of the tunnel coming off former coach Scott Frost‘s frustrating five-year tenure.
“I was happy for the kids and the coaches,” Joseph said. “I was happy for the kids and the coaches, and I’m always going to be happy for them before me because I understand without those guys there wouldn’t be no me. So it was a great accomplishment, but it was a great accomplishment for the entire athletic department, the entire university, the entire state.”
Nebraska rode a significantly improved defensive effort on Saturday to the 35-21 win over Indiana, just the program’s second this season following a win over North Dakota all the way back on Sept. 3.
After a month of speculation — first about Frost’s job status and then about what might happen with his replacement — it was a chance to simply enjoy football again.
Not just for the Cornhuskers players, but for the entire fanbase.
“It felt good that we was able to get the win and people can wake up Sunday morning and go to church and have something to talk about,” Joseph said.
Nebraska still has a lot of games left
If there’s one thing that stands out about the task in front of interim coach Mickey Joseph, it’s just how much of the season remains.
Frost was fired after Week 2 of the college football season. Because Nebraska began its season overseas with a contest against Northwestern in Week 0, the Cornhuskers were a bit ahead of most college football teams.
So while Frost was fired after three games, it was extremely early in the college football calendar.
The Cornhuskers are one of just a few teams that have multiple byes this year. The first came directly after that lopsided loss to the Sooners, which allowed Joseph and company to regroup and produce last weekend’s win over Indiana.
The next will come following this weekend’s road trip to Rutgers and a road trip to Purdue the week after.
Nebraska still has more than half its season left, though. So the challenge for Joseph is to keep the Cornhuskers motivated coming off that first win of the season, and he is doing that by urging Nebraska to ‘play with fire’ this weekend against Rutgers.
The two teams will meet for a 7 p.m. ET kickoff on Saturday with a broadcast on FS1.